


Breathe

by 1000Needles



Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 07:36:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8835928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1000Needles/pseuds/1000Needles
Summary: After Mt. Bur-Omisace, Basch begins having bad dreams and goes to the Garif for help. Not explicit, but some non-consensual interaction, including a lashing, when he's recaptured by Vayne.
This story was originally published April 19, 2007, in LiveJournal's ffxii-fic community. Spoilers through Archades.





	

This mask I wear,  
It cannot smile nor can you see  
Tears underneath.  
Heed not how the sun and moon  
Cast shadows on my face.  
My heart is open if you listen now.

—from the Garif tradition

 

It was after the devastation of Mt. Bur-Omisace that the dreams began. Basch could not remember them, but he would wake in the night, the blood pounding in his head, and find Balthier already alert beside him, his eyes gleaming in the pale light that had seeped into the tent, watching with an odd expression which Basch's pride would not allow him to interpret as pity. "You were dreaming," Balthier would say, and Basch only, shortly, "It is over now."

The further they went from the mountain, however, the frequency of his sleep-disturbances increased, and he understood that for whatever reason it was not over, seemed as if it never would be over. He could recollect only fragments: an unbearable weight on his shoulders, a blow to the face, the bitter cold in his bones, his vision bisected by the bars of a cage. Balthier took him aside one morning as they trudged onward through the Ozmone Plains, heading to Rabanastre and Archades thereafter.

"This cannot continue," he said.

Basch kept his face impassive. "I have been compromising your rest. I apologize. We will sleep apart in future."

"No, damn you, that is not at all what I meant. It displeases me greatly to see you suffer so. Is there no way to help it?"

Basch scanned the others ahead, picking their way across the grassy landscape. Vaan and Penelo were sparring as they went, teasing each other on to further displays of childishness; he envied their innocence. "None of which I am aware."

"What of the Garif? They are said to be knowledgeable in the way of dreams."

He considered. "You may be right, Balthier. Surely it can do no harm to speak with them." At the thought of that tribe's peoples, his heart felt suddenly lighter than it had for many days. Their wisdom had resonated within him before. "Perhaps the lady Ashe will not say me nay if we divert our path to Jahara."

 

* * * * *

 

It was a warm evening in the Garif village. Cross-legged in front of the fire, Basch was sweating lightly, his eyes closed, breathing through his nose in slow, measured intervals. Beside him the great-chief said, "You must confront this fear, not as an adversary, but as a friend. Accept the fear into your awake-mind. Invite it to sit, and listen to what it tells."

"I cannot find it," Basch murmured.

"Breathe. Be at rest. Let it come to you."

The scent of wood-smoke sifted across his consciousness and he saw the refugee camps burning, heard a child crying for its mother. Judges in their faceless armor. His brother's voice, mocking. The unrelenting ache in his arms relieved only by the strain of fatigued muscles supporting his body for as long as they were able. Fear— was he entirely alone and forgotten in this godsforsaken hole?

He had not realized that he was nearly panting until the great-chief spoke again. "You must continue to observe your breath. Take it into you and release it. As you release your breath, release this fear. Breathe."

And so he did, the flames dancing through the screen of his eyelids, his hands open in front of him, hunting an elusive peace.

 

* * * * *

 

After stocking up on supplies in Rabanastre, the party struck north for the Salikawood. It was a long journey, and their halts were brief; when they bedded down each evening after a meal shared round the campfire, Basch was exhausted, and his sleep was heavy and dreamless. He began to hope that the Garif chief's lessons had been fruitful.

Balthier seemed well satisfied. "You are again the man with whom I fell in love," he said one morning after they came upon the Phon Coast. Basch looked upon him with affection, and marked it was the first Balthier had spoken thus. The other man was loading his gun, carefully cleaning the barrel with a length of fine linen and seemingly unaware of the import of his words.

"You do not hold with 'in sickness and in health,' then?" Basch asked, meaning to tease, but Balthier did not smile.

"I prefer health when possible," he said.

The blindingly white beaches of the Phon rose after a few days' march into the Tchita Uplands. The children continued in high spirits, evidently relishing the balmy weather and sea breezes, but Basch was wary of what unfriendly vegetation lurked in the high grass, and he kept his eye on Penelo, who oft grew dreamy and easily distracted. Vaan was little help, as he was quite likely as the girl to go chasing butterflies.

Though the Tchita's panoramas were undeniably lovely, Basch thought the landscape somewhat disquieting. Those ruins—people had lived here, once. No trace of them now endured except these heaps of stone. Balthier had told him the scholars in Archades still studied the remains of the ancient buildings.

"What do they hope to discover?" Basch had asked, and Balthier said, "Power, no doubt," almost sadly.

Basch thought he saw a malboro slink behind a crumbling tower. He slipped around back and found nothing, but there was a gap which led into the building. He went inside. It was too dark to make out anything of the interior; he cast fire and the walls appeared, lined with carvings.

He followed the drawings with a finger, entranced. So long ago, someone had taken implement in hand and created these depictions of life as the artist had seen it: a hunter hefting spear after a fleeing viper, people dancing around a fire, two figures twined in quarrel or embrace. It recalled to him his birth-home in Landis, where finely embroidered tapestries had narrated similar small moments of conflict and peace.

Landis. He had been only Vaan's age when the Imperial Army had set its sights on that tiny republic—had he ever been so innocent?—and he remembered the night his home had burned to the ground, taking his parents and young sisters with it. Basch pressed his face to the cool stone and let the light go out. He would not remember Landis. It was only wasteland now.

Something brushed his shoulder and he jumped, startled. Fire flared again; Balthier stood in its glow, his hand outstretched. "Basch?" he said, hesitantly, as if he did not recognize the other.

Basch lifted his face. "I thought I saw something. I was mistaken."

 

* * * * *

 

Basch came awake that night and realized his heart was racing. He conjured the Garif village into his mind, the cadence of the great-chief's quiet words—breathed, slowly, before opening his eyes. Balthier was propped on one elbow looking at him. In the faint light of the stars, Basch couldn't read his expression.

"You shouted," Balthier said softly.

"I'm sorry." Inhale. Exhale. Calm.

"You needn't apologize." Balthier leaned over and kissed him on the forehead, just next to the scar slashed across his face. "Go back to sleep."

 

* * * * *

 

They came up through Old Archades into the city proper. After a wearying process of bartering information for chops, the party had acquired enough to secure a set of rooms for the night. Balthier threw himself on the bed before Basch had finished closing the door and let his limbs sprawl in all directions, sighing with satisfaction.

"A magnificent mattress!" he said. "My spine refuses to forget the dubious pleasures of roots and hillocks." He stretched luxuriantly.

"Indeed," said Basch. He laid himself beside his lover, admiring the man's ease of relaxation: Balthier was like a great coeurl sprawled in the sun, decadently at peace. Basch draped his arm over the other's chest and curled against him, inhaling; Balthier smelt of gunsmoke and musk.

"You stink," said Balthier complacently. Basch laughed and kissed him on the jawline, enjoying the coarseness of stubble against his lips.

"And here I was just appreciating your remarkable redolence."

"'Redolent' is one word for it, I suppose."

"Aye. You prefer 'stench'?" He swung himself on top of Balthier, straddling his hips, and began to unbuckle the brocaded vest.

Balthier's nose wrinkled. "Linguistic accuracy has e'er been a peccadillo of mine, dear Captain. What say you to a bath?"

"Secondary only to your absurd obsession with personal grooming. You fop," Basch said, grinning, and sampled Balthier's pout with greed. The man's mouth tasted of salt. Salt, gunsmoke, musk; but Basch lifted himself off and said agreeably, "A bath it is."

There was a cabinet adjoining the bed-room which held a great marble basin, and once filled with steaming water, scented with Bancour spices, there was ample space for the two of them to strip down and submerge themselves in its embrace. Basch found Balthier's prick beneath the surface and began to stroke him into firmness. Balthier twisted against him and groaned. "Oh, I have missed this. Oh—" He stopped speaking as Basch used his other hand to cup his balls, slide below them to his cleft.

"Better wash first," Basch said playfully into the other's ear, and reached for a handful of soap-sand as Balthier sighed his disappointment. He lathered the silky stuff between his fingers and traced the muscles of Balthier's chest, circling the tawny nipples. Balthier could remain still for only so long; then he squirmed away and knelt, his knees on either side of Basch's.

"You, fon Ronsenburg, are an incorrigible tease." He dipped his head beneath the water, sucked, and emerged, gasping. "I do not think I can perform this act and breathe at the same time."

Basch sprinkled soap on Balthier's wet head. "Wash yourself, then, fool."

"Hah!" Balthier sat back on his haunches and began to lather his russet hair. "You might do likewise. I do believe the last time your head touched water was when we were caught in the Giza rains."

"As you wish," Basch said, and slipped beneath the water to rise again and toss back his soaking tresses. "You see the sacrifices I make for you, my love?"

"Only you would call cleanliness a sacrifice," said Balthier, rinsing away suds. "I consider my sacrifice of sleeping with such a beast far the greater."

"How you must suffer," Basch answered, laughing, and stepped out of the bath to dry himself on an immense length of cloth. "Join me in the bed when you are ready to endure more."

"You would try the patience of an acolyte," Balthier muttered; but Basch was pleased to see with what alacrity the other man hurried to towel himself and follow.

 

* * * * *

 

They lay together in a tangle of bedding after having had each other in as many ways as they could devise. Spent, Basch stroked Balthier's lean flank, appreciating the play of late-afternoon sun on the other's skin. He considered: have drinks and dinner sent up, enjoy the rare luxury of leisure, before reconvening with the rest of the party? But Balthier sprang from his arms before he could speak, gathering his scattered apparel.

"Clothe yourself, Basch. I know an excellent café in Nilbasse; and thereafter we can try Tsenoble. The clubs there offer unsurpassed liquors—and quite the best Archadian flesh." He folded his cuffs, smirking, and Basch was unpleasantly reminded that Balthier was, after all, Imperial gentry born and bred.

"The flesh of humes enslaved is not to my liking," he said.

"Basch, take not offense. The only flesh I desire is your own." Balthier laid a hand on him placatingly. "I would show you the city I love."

"The city you love! Balthier, I had thought you fled this city in disgust."

"The city? No," Balthier said in puzzlement. "My father, the Judges, yes, but— Basch, why are you angry so?"

"This city is fit only to be scourged," Basch said roughly, thinking of Landis. "And you— I knew you once as one who thought only on his own profit. I fain ought have remembered that."

The other man drew back, and at the clear hurt on his face Basch quickly regretted his words. "Balthier—"

But Balthier finished dressing rapidly. "Understood," he said, the lightness in his tone hardly concealing his emotion. "Stay here, then, and stew in your self-pity. Fran and I shall enjoy the nightlife without your endless wretchedness. We are but a pair of dissipated sky-pirates, you see. We lack your nobility—" and he crossed the room, "your honor—" threw the door open, "and your everlasting pride!" The door slammed shut behind him.

 

* * * * *

 

Basch stood at the window, looking down onto the teeming activity of the city, which seemed only to have increased as the sun went down and the artificial radiance of Archades came to full fruition. He had sought out Ashe and the children in hopes of a quiet supper, but like Fran and Balthier they too had set out to explore the surrounding precincts.

All but alone in the hotel, for the other guests were by-and-large on the town as well, he had requisitioned a loaf of bread and some ersatz nanna-cheese from the kitchen. His solitary meal might have been ashes. Why had he spoken to Balthier so harshly? The man had surely meant no harm, and Basch had surely had no pleasure of it.

His brother too had loved Archades. In the early years of the Imperial occupation, Noah had been infatuated with the trappings of fascism and had gravitated towards the youth-militia which the Archadian Empire promoted in its colonies. Basch had argued with him desperately.

"Your duty compels you to defend our homeland, brother! How can you betray our people thus?"

Noah had only sneered at him. "Basch, your thinking is provincial. Landis is but a pebble on the great map of Ivalice; and I do not intend to remain here all my days, protecting a herd of peasants."

By the time the Empire had decided finally to rout the rebellious republic for good, Noah was already gone, promoted to service in Archades. Basch never saw his twin again until Nalbina, and then Noah was calling himself Gabranth; were it not for their matching faces, they might have been strangers.

He blew out the lamp and settled, rather uncomfortably, into bed: the mattress was overlarge, and he was unaccustomed to the great mass of blankets and sheets, and there was an empty space where Balthier's body ought to be. Damn the man. He realized he was clenching his teeth and forced himself to relax the muscles of his jaw and breathe through his nose, counting, counting, until sleep came nearer. Yet his mind refused to quiet.

He was still half-awake when he heard a key turn in the lock.

"Balthier?" he murmured, struggling up. The door flew open and a gang of guards burst in, silhouetted against the light from the hall. He leapt from bed, grabbing blindly for his sword; one of the men intercepted him before he could reach it. The Imperial slammed the heel of his hand into Basch's chin and his head hit the wall with a heavy thud of bone against rock. His mouth welled suddenly with blood.

He brought his shield-arm up instinctively and swung with the other, connecting solidly with the man's helmet. Bone against metal. The vibration went all the way to his shoulder and his knuckles exploded with white pain. The man staggered back, and Basch lunged again for his weapon where it lay on a table near the window. A soldier tackled him and he landed hard on the stone floor, a boot digging into his naked chest, a sword-tip at his throat.

"Kingslayer," the soldier said with contempt, and Basch swallowed; he had not heard that in a long while. Then he was being cuffed, and hauled to his feet, and they threw a cloak around him, the voluminous hood hiding his face (so they still fear I'll be recognized, even under cover of night, Basch thought). It was easier, blind. He let them drag him away.

 

* * * * *

 

"What the fuck do you mean, you gave them the key?" Balthier screamed. Fran had never seen him so enraged. It frightened her a little, reminded her of herself under the influence of Mist.

The desk-clerk was drawn back stiffly as far from the counter as possible. "It was the Imperial Guard, my lord. I had no choice. You know they would only have broken down the door had I refused."

Fran and Balthier had taken a cab back to the hotel earlier that morning, as the stars were beginning to fade. Balthier had been in a strange mood all the evening, brusquely rebuffing any who tried to engage him in flirtation, barricading himself at the bar with an ever-expanding wall of bottles. When his forehead had sunk so low as to be resting on his forearms, Fran sighed and maneuvered him out of the club and into a hovering vehicle. In the cab, he testily accepted an antidote and slouched against the seat, closing his eyes.

When they arrived to the hotel, Fran had helped Balthier to his room, although by then he was no longer staggering. But instead of a warm bed he found the door wide open and the furniture overturned, and only indifference from the clerk.

"You stupid fucking ardent!" Fran thought for a moment that Balthier would strike the man. His face was curled into a vicious snarl; he looked quite unlike himself. Then he gained his equilibrium with a visible effort. "My apologies. That was uncalled for. Have my bill prepared; we leave at once."

"Yes, my lord," the clerk muttered, hands shaking as he drew the document from a drawer. "Right away, my lord."

Balthier pulled her aside urgently. "What say you, Fran? Where have they taken him?" He was helpless in his fury and her heart went out to him. Such a hume, such a child still. She cast her mind to the city.

Archades was a strange place, hazed over with the effects of mighty nethecite. Her senses were dampened as they never were out in the open lands. "Draklor," she said finally. "There he may have gone. A chaos, it is. Certain I cannot be."

 

* * * * *

 

The guards forced Basch to his knees in front of the emperor. It was the first Basch had seen him face-to-face. The man surveyed him without a change in expression, then snapped his fingers, sending the soldiers away. They stared at each other, Basch with his hands cuffed behind his back, naked and proud, and Vayne tall in his royal robes, dark hair cascading over his shoulders, and a half-smile playing on his face. He stepped forward.

"How like your brother you are," Vayne commented, lifting Basch's chin in his fingers. Basch met his eyes stolidly. "I wonder if you give head as well as he?" Basch recoiled, colored. "Oh, do not play the blushing virgin. I mark well your ear." He tugged the ring in Basch's lobe roughly. Balthier had pierced it, one night in Golmore, under the eerie forest light; it was the closest they had to a love-token. Basch, breathing carefully, did not answer.

The emperor changed tack abruptly. "So where is this Dalmascan princess of yours?" Basch was glad to be back on more familiar footing. He answered easily.

"I do not know; and if I did, I would not tell you." Vayne grinned and reached out to grasp one of Basch's nipples, gave it a vicious twist. Basch gasped and felt his cock harden against his will. Vayne laughed.

"You enjoy a bit of pain, then, Captain?" He dug his elegant long thumbnail into the flesh until Basch could not help but cry out. "The possibilities are infinite. Supposing I strung you up and whipped you until you bled: would you tell me then where I could find the princess, or would you only savor the pleasure, and beg for more?"

Inhale. Exhale. Calm. "There is no torture you could offer me, Lord Vayne, worse than that which I have already suffered a thousand times over in Nalbina."

Vayne snorted, released him. "Dull. Very dull. Were you more interesting, I would devise an appropriate agony. Guards! Put him away somewhere until he is ready to sing."

As they yanked him to his feet again, Basch silently thanked the gods that Balthier had not been there with a clever retort which Vayne, no doubt, would have found all too amusing.

 

* * * * *

 

"Fran!" They were outside the Aerodrome. She was working quickly, her fingers tangled in the sky-stone compartment of a soldier's hoverbike. "Someone's coming."

"A moment," she said tersely. Then the engine hummed to life. "Now, Balthier." He came around the corner and slipped onto the bike behind her. "Punch it," he said into her ear.

A bangaa came running after. "Oi! What d'you think you're doing?"

"Stealing the transport of some Imperial scum!" Balthier yelled back.

The bangaa stopped. "Oh, that's all right, then," he said cheerfully. Fran laughed as they shot off into the sky. It was too long since she'd ridden thus with Balthier, not since they'd picked up that silly hume boy in Rabanastre. To fly so was a joy that surpassed even the Strahl. She stepped hard on the accelerator and was rewarded with a grunt of surprise from her partner. Ah, she was born for this: whipping through the urban forest of pinnacles and towers, the very speed of it racing in her veins. I pity you, my earthbound sisters of the wood! You will never know the pleasure of this magnificent machine between your legs.

The profile of the Draklor Laboratory loomed into view, and Fran coasted reluctantly to a stop on the rooftop. "Soon again we must do this, Balthier," she said. "The sky beneath my feet have I missed."

"Next time let it be the boy we are hunting," Balthier said. "First Penelo, now Basch—" She marked how the strain showed in his voice and nodded.

"That we will find him, have no fear. I sense him close at hand. Vayne, also."

"Vayne?" Balthier turned his face to her. "Where?"

"They are within. Come." And Fran set off across the broad surface of the building, her pale hair streaming behind her, confident now: the nethecite might blunt the edges of her perception, but she could hear him, Basch, crying out—

 

* * * * *

 

"Enough!" Basch stood, strapped to a pillar, breathing heavily. "What do you want of me?"

Vayne cradled the coeurl-o-nine-tails, smiling. Basch had not been long in his cell before he was summoned out again; evidently Vayne had grown sufficiently bored in that time to try his hand once more at his tedious victim. It appeared to Basch that the game had little to do with his knowledge of the princess's whereabouts and more to do with his captor's jaded appetites.

"Your brother was always such an obedient creature," Vayne murmured. "Where come you by this idiotic obstinacy?"

"Obstinate I am not, Lord Vayne, merely ignorant," Basch said, his mouth aching where the soldier had hit him before. He tongued the interior surreptitiously; his teeth seemed all intact.

Vayne lashed him across the chest; he bit back a scream between swollen lips. "It is ignorance you choose to plead? Then you needs must be taught." The emperor ran a hand through Basch's hair with surprising gentleness. "'Tis a pity you're so handsome; Gabranth rather spoiled your symmetry." He slid his thumb down Basch's scar.

"My symmetry is the least of which Gabranth has spoiled in his career," Basch said.

"To see fraternity thus riven is heartrending," Vayne mused. He paced to a pillar and assumed a thoughtful pose, leaning back with his arms crossed to study Basch. "It would be most gratifying if I could conceive some creative method of… uniting you."

Basch shuddered under Vayne's ravenous gaze. "Lord Vayne—" he began.

Thwunk! An arrow planted itself in the pillar, a mere finger-length above Vayne's head. The emperor started; and in her unmistakable, slow, satisfied voice, Fran said, "I would not move, if I wished to keep my eyes intact." She had another arrow already notched. "It was not a mistake, when first I missed. A warning only. Remain as you are."

"Nicely done, Fran," said Balthier, following her into the room. "Shall you keep our friend at bay whilst I release this fellow?"

"With pleasure," she answered, sighting down the shaft of her arrow as Balthier undid Basch's bonds. He slipped an arm around the man's back, supporting him.

"Can you walk?" he asked quietly into the other's ear.

"Aye," said Basch. Fran smiled to see them so; they made a fine pair, she thought.

"And thus our leave we must take of you," she told Vayne. "Pray we do not meet again under circumstances less forgiving."

Vayne's eyes were murderous. "You will not get far," he warned. "The guards are at my call."

"Oh, Vayne," she said caressingly. "Do you crave death so? Royal blood on my hands I do not yet desire." She cast sleep on him and saw him slump to the floor. "Now to the roof."

Balthier and Basch followed her up the stairs. The hoverbike was where they had left it. "I do not think it will carry three," said Basch, holding himself up against Balthier.

"Fran has thought of that," Balthier said. She grinned.

"Balthier speaks truly. This device I have modified somewhat. Much have I learnt of mooglecraft; the Imperials build well, but not so well as moogles may." Fran swung herself onto the bike and gestured behind. "On, and we shall away."

They sped into the sky, her thighs gripping the machine, her fingers clasped joyously around the handles, and Fran reflected that, on the whole, it had been a most entertaining adventure.

 

* * * * *

 

"The filthy bastard," Balthier said ferociously, spreading potion across Basch's torso. "I would that Fran had put him out of his misery."

"Nay, there was no necessity," said Basch, reclined on the bed and rather enjoying the rubdown, although his injuries were stinging. "We leave that to the lady Ashe's discretion."

"She will be exceeding wroth when she hears of the truth of this."

"She need not know. Tomorrow we are to Draklor again for the Dusk Shard. Keep this day's events to your chest, Balthier. The time may come when we speak of it, but this is not that time."

They had found another hotel in the Rienna district, where Balthier deemed the Imperials would not discover them, and Fran had gone to relay the change of lodging to the others. Basch thought Ashe would wax impatient at the delay, but Balthier said Fran would concoct an acceptable excuse. "You must have at least a night's respite before we take the Laboratory."

Now Basch sat up before Balthier could finish his ministrations. "Balthier, my dear, I owe you a great apology. I spoke cruelly to you evening-last, and I am sorry."

Balthier blushed most becomingly. "Speak not of it! I am embarrassed that I did not comprehend your feelings on the subject. You are quite forgiven."

"I do not deserve you," Basch murmured, and reached out to stroke the other's hair.

"You do; and much more besides." Balthier's lip curled wickedly. "A more intimate massage might do for starters."

"You are shameless, man! Would you take advantage of me on my sick-bed?"

"I would," Balthier purred, and pushed Basch back down onto the blanket. "The question becomes: which orifice would you prefer to plunder first?"

"Or rather, my estimable pirate, would I prefer that you plunder me?"

"A remarkably enticing proposition."

They got little sleep that night, Balthier and Basch; and when they did, it was quite sound, and their breath was joined in perfect harmony.


End file.
